$5M REWARD FOR MAN ON FBI TERRORIST LIST

The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information that helps authorities capture two reputed members of the Somali-based al-Shabaab terrorist group, including a man from San Diego.

The reward offer is the latest effort to try to catch Jehad Serwan Mostafa, a San Diego man who was indicted in federal court here in 2009 on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Another $5 million reward was offered for information on a second American, Omar Shafik Hammami of Alabama.

The FBI said Mostafa — who also uses the nicknames “Ahmed,” “Emir Anwar,” and “Anwar” — left the U.S. for Somalia in 2005 to join al-Shabaab. The group was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government in February 2008.

Al-Shabaab, which means “the youth” in Arabic, has been accused of suicide bombings, beheadings, kidnappings, and attacks on U.N. peacekeeping and government forces in Somalia. It espouses a radical Islamist view and is aligned with al-Qaeda.

Mostafa is a leader of foreign fighter troops for al-Shabaab and serves as a media expert. He’s a former University of California San Diego student who studied economics and once worked at an unassuming auto parts store on El Cajon Boulevard.

The government said he is one of about 40 people — mostly young men and many, like Mostafa, U.S. citizens — who traveled to Somalia beginning in 2005. More than a dozen have died in the fighting there.

Mostafa served as a top lieutenant to a senior al- Qaeda leader, Saleh Nabhan, who was killed in a Navy SEALs attack in 2010, according to a report by The Washington Post. Mostafa was born in 1981 or 1986, and is on the FBI’s Most Wanted terrorist list.